The Lovable Misogynist. Again.
Dedication / John Williams
Dedication has a lot of things going against it — romantic contrivances, characters conversing with spirits (spectral, not alcoholic), and overuse of indie-rock songs and visual gimmicks to cue emotional responses, to name three. But it has one big thing going for it — Billy Crudup.
Crudup doesn’t appear in movies very often, but when he does he’s reliably pretty damn good. In Dedication, he plays Henry, an increasingly familiar type — the depressed, creative male plagued by crippling quirkiness. In the case of Henry, a writer of books for children, a generalized hatred of people (especially women, because of an abusive mother) is joined to several phobias and what seems like a mild case of Tourette’s.
When Henry’s illustrator and best/only friend Rudy (Tom Wilkinson) dies, Alan Planck (Bob Balaban), the publisher of their bestseller starring Marty the Beaver, wants to find a new drawing partner pronto, to finish a Christmas-themed follow-up in time for the holiday season. After a funny scene in which Planck auditions a few young candidates, telling them that success is “ninety-nine percent perseverance and one percent talent. Congratulations, you’re ninety-nine percent of the way there,” he offers the gig to Lucy (Mandy Moore).
Lucy’s working relationship with Henry almost ends before it begins when he berates her at their very first meeting. She storms out, vowing not to work with such a world-class jerk. An offer from Planck of $200,000 to fight through it helps to change her mind.
What happens from there is predictable. Henry remains hard to like, but he lets down his guard just enough to allow Lucy a glimpse of his more vulnerable side, and this, along with his square jaw, sets her on the road to falling for him, nuttiness, hostility and all. Their budding romance is complicated by the reappearance of Lucy’s old flame (not to mention Henry’s self-destructive behavior), and people have to prove their intentions to each other, and emotional screw-ups lead to unlikely acts of atonement, and the book is jeopardized by the love-hate chaos surrounding its production, and Henry learns about himself and makes a well-intentioned lunge toward personal growth — but is he too late? Et-freaking-cetera.
All of this occasionally threatens to become too much to take, especially when it’s accompanied by heavy-handed attempts at colorful detail. (Do Henry and Rudy really sit to casually chat over coffee on the base of the giant World’s Fair globe in Queens??) But Crudup salvages things with a strong central performance, resisting most of the stereotypical tics available for such a characterization. When he begins to catalog his neuroses, fears, likes, and dislikes as a way of breaking the ice with Lucy, the audience might rightfully fear the coming torrent of studied oddities, but Crudup redeems the formula in a way that makes Lucy’s (and our) softening toward him more understandable.
Crudup is accompanied by some fine supporting actors, even if none of their characters are particularly rich. In addition to Wilkinson and Balaban, Dedication features Martin Freeman as Lucy’s former beau, Dianne Wiest as her mother, and cameos by Amy Sedaris, Bobby Cannavale, and Peter Bogdanovich. The impossibly attractive Moore isn’t going to bowl anyone over with her performance, not least because Lucy is underwritten, but she’s serviceable, and the fact that she shares so much screen time with Crudup without embarrassing herself speaks well of her potential. Plus, that hair! Those eyes!
Sorry.
The two have decent chemistry (the scene involving their first kiss — and if you think that’s a spoiler, you’ve never seen a movie — is one of Dedication’s best). The script has just enough spark to keep things from growing tedious, and there’s one decision that Henry makes in his courtship (regarding information he has about Lucy’s ex) that proves Dedication is smart enough to play with certain conventions, even as it caves in to others, and say something fresh(ish) about what it means to love and respect someone. It’s not perfect by a long shot, but it manages to be romantic, which is more than most recent romances can say.
John Williams lives in Brooklyn. He’s a freelance writer. He blogs at A Special Way of Being Afraid.
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Comments
Are we thinking of the same Billy Crudup?
Posted by: Craig at September 11, 2007 10:03 AM
Craig, for real. Billy Crudup is a slimy douchebag in all his films. I can't stand him. That's not to say all his movies are bad, just that I would rather make out with Tom Wilkinson than him.
Posted by: Jen at September 11, 2007 10:13 AM
Well, fuck. This sucks. This looks like a completely derivative and predictable movie. It telegraphs itself horrendously.
But I love me some Billy Crudup (I don't see how you can't stand him, Jen.). And I have a serious crush on that tall drink of water, Mandy Moore. So...
Ah, hell. I'll hate myself for it, but I'm going. DAMMIT!
Posted by: TK at September 11, 2007 10:29 AM
I actually wasn't very convinced whether I wanted to see this or not until I read "features Martin Freeman as Lucy's former beau". I've had a major crush on Freeman ever since watching the Office UK. I think any movie is worth seeing as long as he's in it
Posted by: Renee at September 11, 2007 10:41 AM
TK, I liked him till I saw Stage Beauty. I thought he was annoying in Big Fish, but I assumed it was only because his character was kind of a jerk. I wanted to gouge out my eyes about twenty minutes into Stage Beauty, though. I think he could be a good actor, but his whiny self-centeredness grates. Plus, I don't find him physically charismatic, so the square jaw thing is wasted on me.
Eh, I'll end up watching it On Demand, or something, because I do like Mandy Moore.
Posted by: Jen at September 11, 2007 10:42 AM
Also, Martin Freeman is super cute.
Posted by: Jen at September 11, 2007 10:51 AM
TK - did I mention that I once met Mandy Moore? She's cute in person, too.
Go Yankees!
Posted by: Kolby at September 11, 2007 11:17 AM
Kolby, never before has a comment made me simultaneously love and hate a person like that did.
Posted by: TK at September 11, 2007 11:30 AM
Kolby, never before has a comment made me simultaneously love and hate a person like that did.
Posted by: TK at September 11, 2007 11:30 AM
This looks sappy, predicatble and utterly perfect for a Saturday afternoon. I'll wait for the DVD though. One minor problem is that I susupect my DVD player may spontaneously combust from the combined prettiness of Crudup and Moore on screen at the same time... does anyone have any suggestions as to how to prevent this?
Posted by: Alex the Odd at September 11, 2007 12:00 PM
Billy Crudup is a Golden God.
Posted by: redbeaniegirl at September 11, 2007 12:02 PM
is nobocy else noticing that in the picture up top mandy moore looks like she was styled to look exactly like ally sheedy in the breakfast club? i thought that's who the picture was of when i first saw it. i don't really think anything about it, just noticed it. and i like billy crudup and tk, i didn't know that mandy moore was tall.
um, that is all.
Posted by: kb at September 11, 2007 12:46 PM
Billy Crudup totally wants to see my snake eat a mouse.
Posted by: Constance at September 11, 2007 1:02 PM
Jen, you WOULD want to make out with Tom Wilkinson rather than Billy Crudup! I'm not surprised at all. Me, well, even though he's slimy in real life, he's a pleasure to watch onscreen.
Posted by: Rachael at September 11, 2007 1:48 PM
Aside from him being a real life skeeze, my problem with Billy Crudup is that I can't think of him now without imagining that ridiculous British accent he tried to pull off in the Good Shepherd. I did like him in Almost Famous but I guess that's because he does smarmy asshole pretty well.
I'll still see this because Mandy Moore and especialy Martin Freeman rank high on my cutie-patootie list.
Posted by: MG at September 11, 2007 2:15 PM
Sorry, but Crudup is playing the same character in Dedication that he played in Trust The Man (except in that movie, his girlfriend was the author).
Posted by: Ginger at September 11, 2007 2:16 PM
How can you NOT love Billy Crudup? He's fantastic! Also, Martin Freeman is one of my favorite working actors.
Posted by: Kevin Longrie at September 11, 2007 3:05 PM
Crudup was one of the best parts of Mission Impossible 3 (in a tiny, but great, role). Just thinking of that scene where he sits in front of Cruise and says "it's complicated"... I loved that.
Posted by: TK at September 11, 2007 3:34 PM
Constance, is that a euphemism?
As for Dedication, i thought it was cute, mostly fluff, forgettable. But it didn't piss me off or insult my intelligence, which is unusual for a romantic comedy. Not sure if that's a glowing review or not.
Posted by: Scott at September 11, 2007 4:58 PM
Scott: Kind of. It's a nod to Crudup's hot, square-jawedness and his hilarious acid trip in Almost Famous
Posted by: Constance at September 11, 2007 5:33 PM
Same shit, different day.
Been there, done that.
Next!
Posted by: Fabiola Thing at September 11, 2007 6:23 PM
Look, I enjoy Billy Crudup, but lately I can't shake the feeling that he's a low-rent Christian Bale.
Basically every role I see him in, I think, "He's good, but Christian Bale would have done the same thing just a little better."
Posted by: Lee at September 11, 2007 6:53 PM
I can't think of any circumstance under which I would sit down and watch this. *shrugs*
Posted by: BarbadoSlim at September 11, 2007 8:21 PM
Unfortunately, I can't watch Billy Crudup without getting insanely angry at how he left the goregously cute Mary-Louise Parker while she was pregnant. He is a SCOUNDREL, I tell you, a good-for-nothing-SCOUNDREL! This inability-to-watch has extended to Claire Danes - she participated in the relationship that lead to Billy Crapup leaving poor MLP.
Disclaimer: Weeds fan.
Posted by: JJ McClay at September 11, 2007 8:35 PM
If Mandy Moore's talent catches up with her charisma, she'll be a force to be reckoned with. Right now, her acting is serviceable, but she still manages to elevate the scenes she's in (that being said, I still refuse to see Because I Said So, even if held at gunpoint).
I loved her in Saved!, and she was the only thing that made American Dreamz even remotely watchable.
Posted by: Craig at September 11, 2007 9:50 PM
I still cannot believe all the props Mandy Moore is getting. Her acting is about as fascinating as white wallpaper. The only thing worse is her "singing."
And I cannot even listen to Billy Crudpipe without thinking of a Mastercard commercial.
Posted by: Justine at September 12, 2007 11:50 PM
the depressed, creative male plagued by crippling quirkiness
Simple reason why that's such a common character: that describes most screenwriters.
Posted by: Darth Corleone at September 14, 2007 4:46 PM
"World's Fair Globe"??? It's the Unisphere, dammit!
Posted by: Joe at September 15, 2007 8:49 PM
I can't watch movies with Crudup in them because I am so distracted waiting for him to end all his sentences with "Priceless"! It almost ruined Big Fish for me, that MasterCard voice of his.
Posted by: amberlynne at September 19, 2007 12:02 PM
I adore Billy Crudup.
I think he's one of the best actors out there and people who don't get that, I don't get. Besides people who do like him as a person such as Julianne Moore and Ethan Hawke are people I like a lot. And I have read that he is actually a nice guy and a good father.
He just went thinking with his not to be named and now the girl he fell in love with has left him for another. She is the true snake in this sorry story which has more or less ruined his career as a star but he doesn't mind and I don't care.
I haven't seen Dedication yet but I will. In Europe nobody's ever heard of Mandy Moore but I will watch just about anything that's got Billy Crudup in it. It is never a disappointment in my opinion.
Posted by: Anja at March 3, 2008 5:10 PM
